LinkedIn’s updated Recruiter app launches with new insights to find the right candidates

As promised, LinkedIn has launched its updated Recruiter app, complete with new insights to help companies surface the right talent when needed. The app, which is currently being used by 41,000 companies worldwide, streamlines the hiring process by giving recruiters a starting point for their search.

Announced at the company’s Talent Connect conference last October, the upgrade now includes multiple ways for a recruiter to search. The problem human resource employees had faced was that the search parameters didn’t offer enough options, like the ability to search for specific qualities. Hiring managers may not even tell recruiters what the particular role is, which leaves a lot of guessing and praying that the right candidate will come around.

You can now search based on specific traits, job titles, or by LinkedIn profile. If you search by name, the app will analyze the member’s profile and select candidates from the 414 million accounts to find the ones that best match up. It also supports queries based on job title, location, skills, companies that someone has worked for, schools they’ve attended, and other keywords.

Rahim Daya, senior product manager for search at LinkedIn, explains it like this:

Let’s say you’re interested in hiring a project manager who is PMP certified, but don’t know all the terms to include in your search. Once you enter ‘project manager’ into the search bar, Recruiter will prompt you to select a location and then will suggest trending skills that are most common for people on LinkedIn with that same title. You don’t need to know how to develop a complex search string.

Additional filtering can be made within the Spotlights at the top of the page, which can be adjusted based on what a company is looking for.

LinkedIn told VentureBeat that in early testing it has seen a 17 percent decrease in the number of searches performed, meaning that the enhanced search experience helped recruiters find the right person to reach out to. Additionally, there’s been a 42 percent increase in the number of profile views per search. These percentages appear to indicate that the updated workflow has become more efficient than before.

The new search function utilizes LinkedIn’s Economic Graph to source results and dig deeper into results. The company also says that businesses can better understand their leads — the app will surface data that helps recruiters pinpoint candidates who follow their firm, have applied before, or are connected with an employee. It’s all designed to make recruiting not only more efficient, but smarter.